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Flatball Radio| Donnie Clark’s Second Chance

by | April 23, 2015, 8:49am 0

I had never met Donnie Clark before we worked on Flatball Radio together. All I knew is that he was a relentlessly positive goof ball who was blazing fast on the field and had a penchant for referring to himself in the third person. Donnie was lovable from the start, but the person I got to know had a whole other side that complemented his effervescence. Donnie’s rhetorical abilities are striking, it turns out, because he does a lot of public speaking. Specifically, he talks to groups of foster children because he was a foster child.

When we were first sitting down, I poured Donnie a glass of orange juice. When I put the bottle back in co-creator Tyler Kinley’s fridge, I saw that it had been expired for two weeks. I tuned around to stop him from drinking it but he already had a pulpy mustache. I told him the juice was expired and without missing a beat, Donnie turned it into a joke and let it roll off his back. It was just orange juice, but that moment represents so much about Donnie. He doesn’t have time to let things like that weigh him down. His childhood put his priorities into laser focus.

Flatball Radio is a great excuse for me to grow as a person. Sure, I’m getting to create a live storytelling event as part of my job, but more importantly I get to listen and learn from some wonderful people. When I realized that Donnie had every reason to be mad at the world but that instead, he chose to be happy, it pushed me to grow. His infectious optimism and learning about his life story made our meetings much more than just telling stories.

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